13th Excerpt to Ellory, a fiction novel
Ellen Effy Su. September 3, 2025.
Ellory knocked three times on Vivian’s bedroom door before she entered the room. She was trained to knock before entering a closed space because she saw her parents going at it once when she was six. It scarred her momentarily until she realized sex is a normal biological activity that humans engage in. The purity mindset and ideology are directly linked to centuries of men and society undermining women and their independent autonomy.
Ellory saw that Vivian wasn’t there. She texted her, “Hey, when will you be coming home? You’re welcome to join us for dinner.”
She sat atop the neatly made bed, relaxed her bum against the soft bamboo navy duvet, and closed her eyes to remember this moment. Life was good again. It had been a prolonged period of time before Ellory felt genuine joy. Faking smiles and forced small talk gets boring, but everyone does it to feel relief or connection. Maybe some feign curiosity about others, but some pry to find a similar pain point or happiness factor.
She stood up to sit at the desk, where she pulled out a writing pad and a Montblanc blue pen from the drawer.
Her pen began dancing strategically. Writing is a time-expensive solo activity that some have difficulty understanding the purpose behind it all. Writers share in a way that spoken words are unable to deliver eloquently.
Ellory wrote in cursive. Her fluid black ink gracefully entranced her eyes as she conceived an organic poem.
“Love is an open wound. Love is a father who shatters glasses on the wood floor but never raises a hand to his children because he would never beat his children the way he was beaten as a child. Love is a mother who sacrifices her ambitious dreams and desires to give her child a better childhood than she had. Love is a father who drinks himself into oblivion out of regret he did not appreciate the family he had. Love is a mother who sells her designer bags to pay the mortgage and utility bills. Love is a father who is robbed of his youth, time, energy, and spends his money on trying to fix the daughter he abandoned. Love is a mother who focuses on making more money to provide monetary attributes in an attempt to make up for the lack of maternal instinct. Love is a father who shakes the hands of men he detests to get a deal sheet signed, so his children can continue living in their house. Love is a mother who strips away her humanity, her pride, and her confidence to lose repeatedly in life and face adversity with a smile for her child to survive. Love is a father who buys his daughter hundreds of books in languages he cannot comprehend, for her to grow wiser than he did. Love is a mother who believes her child is her most valuable diamond. Love is a father who would give up his athletic club membership for his son to study abroad. Love is a mother who would sell her engagement ring if it meant her children had food to eat that week. Love is a father who runs himself haggard trying to make ends meet for his daughter to live another year. Love is a mother who sends her child to a reform camp to boost her survival skills in the real world despite not knowing the amount of harm that cannot be undone. Love is a father who doesn’t understand why his son is gay but tells him he loves him no matter what. Love is a mother who reads about homosexuality and researches the Stonewall Monument to become accepting of her child’s love interests. Love is a father who bends to support his daughter’s dream of becoming an actress. Love is a mother who spends her last five dollars to buy a sandwich for her hungry child. Love is a father who spends each waking hour working to supplement his son’s tuition fees. Love is labor that goes unnoticed. Love is sacrifice. Love is waking up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to meet someone for a job opportunity, so the children can sleep until noon on a weekend. Love is decorating and restyling a bedroom for the daughter who worships Architectural Digest. Love is selecting materials with the spawn to consider her taste for the shared space. Love is setting up furniture together, so the daughter doesn’t need to hire someone. Love is brewing a stew for the daughter who has menstrual cramps each month. Love is cleaning an unfurnished apartment for the daughter who is scared of living alone. Love is through acts of service, compassion, kindness, monetary desires, and reaffirmation of care. Love cannot be seen literally, the way fifty grams of cocaine is obviously visible. Love exists all around us. It is the mother who pulls her daughter in closer to shield her from the incoming nearby traffic. It is the father who never gets violent because he grew up with an abusive father. It is the mother who sells what her mother gave her because it is the only thing she thinks she is good at. It is the father who gives continuously out of fear that his child will suffer at the hands of a stranger. Love is a remorseful father who left his family and came back years later, realizing his dream of grandeur had changed. Love is the stranger who gives her seat on the train to a pregnant woman. A smaller form of love is the struggling student who gives a granola bar and whispers The sky changes, look up, to the houseless man sitting on the pavement. Love is holding open doors for strangers who are holding items without expecting anything more than a thank you.”
She rehearsed an old conversation with a former friend inside her mind. It was February of eighth grade. Her almond eyes were tightly closed as she entered into a memory.
The air chilled fourteen-year-old Ellory to the bone as she sat on a chair out on the balcony. Ellory and Natalie were sitting next to the small circular table while looking out at the view. Natalie lived in a house, so she loved the sight from the 16th floor. People want what they cannot have.
A Memory from February 2018
“Natalie, you refuse to speak Korean to your grandmother, and you spent your entire life wishing you were white enough when you should be proud to be Korean. You erase your cultural identity to fit in because that’s what you think being American means. I’ve always been Chinese, and I’m not ashamed of where my family is from. Our home cities are as beautiful as New York, although they are vastly different. My ancestors did not escape poverty. They wanted to escape being stepped on by corrupt officials. I am not embarrassed by my heritage, and I don’t understand why you are. You purposefully disconnect yourself from your roots. I don’t know why you feel like you have to erase part of your identity to appear as American enough. We will never be white. Accept it.”
“Ellory, you think you’re so far above us because you refuse to assimilate? Your favorite television show is Gossip Girl. You worship Blake Lively, a white, blonde American woman. You sing Taylor Swift songs at 6 AM. You take hour-long showers when you’re sad. I know you cry in the shower. The walls can’t tune out the sound. You cling to your culture because you have never been able to fit into American culture. You wrinkle your nose at casserole and American football. Your comfort food is seafood noodle soup and kimbap. You’re upset you didn’t get to grow up in China, with people who look like us, and you blow off steam by being braggadocious about your talents. We get it. You speak five languages. You play sonatas by memory. You’re surprisingly great at dance. You know how to tie a bowline knot. You flex constantly with knowledge, instead of money. You make us feel like the dumbest idiots when we are around you. Instead of connecting with us on shared interests, you rub in our faces what we lack. You’re selfish. Nobody is perfect. I wanted to fit in with my American friends. What’s so wrong about that? Not everyone wants to read in the library alone. You act like you had a choice.”
“Oh, I did have a choice. I could’ve given up my cultural identity to be a white-washed Yankee Asian, but I thought that would be disrespectful to myself. Being American doesn’t mean I have to give up the food I like, the television I watch, the music I listen to, the friends from back home, and my mother tongue. It is as much my language as English is my language. I didn’t know that to be your friend, I had to sacrifice myself. You can’t even order food in Korean anymore. Did you know you’ve forgotten how to speak your native language? I hope it was worth it, mixing with a crowd that will never let you in fully.”
“I was never fluent in Korean. I knew more words when I was little before I went to school. I don’t have Korean friends. Who would I converse with? I didn’t intentionally erase my identity. It just happened. Time passed us by. I didn’t go out of my way to stay connected with Koreans or Korean culture. I assimilated. I like it this way. They were able to accept me because I adapted to their way of thinking. I laugh with them through their jokes of Asians. I don’t mind when they think our food is weird. I don’t take offense when they criticize our traditions. I don’t care because I view myself as American first and Korean third. I know you don’t understand, but I like the way I live.”
“I understand you chose a life I will not be a part of. I don’t aspire to live separated from my culture, customs, traditions, and food is significant of the fact that I know I am as Chinese as I am American. I cook native dishes to preserve my identity, not someone else’s. I’m not going to lose myself to blend in with anyone. I’d rather be alone than with the people who make racist jokes. I am not capable of swallowing my pride to fit in. You’re not as brave as I remember. Who’s the girl who kicked the highest in Taekwondo? I don’t see her in you anymore.”
“I grew up, Ellory. I wanted different things. I quit those interests and focused on spending time with my friends. We don’t have to be the people our parents expect us to be. You’re so conservative about sex, and yet, you dress liberally. You’re afraid of conformity, so you refuse to compromise. You spend your time with people who look like you because you don’t think it’s possible to be close to white people. You think you’re too different to be friends. You grew up here. You played tennis with us. You taught us secret handshakes. You write about American culture. You study philosophy. Why can’t you accept us? So what if we’re whitewashed and Americanised? We’re still the people who should matter to you.”
“I can’t. If I did, it would be like turning my back on my identity.”
“You’re stubborn. You’d rather be alone than accept that they’re sorry?”
“Apologies mean nothing when there is no action. If they truly cared, they would be the ones speaking right now, and not you. They sent you like some sort of intermediary? You’re their pigeon now.”
“I was not sent by anyone. I want you to know that we are not terrible people, and we do care about you. We pick on you because we care. We teased you about your accent because we knew you could change it. We opened up your mindset on homosexuality, gay liberation, purple hair, and explained to you what an Eiffel Tower meant. We did that because we knew you could grow to accept all kinds of love. So, why can’t you forgive us and be our friend again?”
“It’s been too long. It’s not possible to turn back the clock. We’re not the same people. I made new friends. I stay connected with my roots. I don’t want to mix with you or them. I’ve changed. I no longer want to please the people who enjoyed dragging me to hell.”
“Ellory, you think social isolation is hell? We were cruel, but we didn’t hurt you physically.”
“I don’t think we need to reconnect. I don’t want to be in this world or your world. There’s a gap that expands every day. I belong to my own kind of people. My gran was right. No matter what I do, I will never be a part of a world that will not let me in. I need to accept that as the truth.”
“So, you want to pretend like we never met? You won’t acknowledge us or say hello. You won’t smile at us. You’ll act like you don’t miss us?”
“I don’t miss you. You were my favorite temporary friend. I accepted it would be a short while before you moved on. I’m the one you come to when you’re alone, but I am never the one you will publicly defend. I don’t need your half-hearted sincerity. I will never be that weak again.”
“Fine, be that way. I’ll never speak to you again. I’ll see if you like it.”
There was no sound, but something jolted Ellory to consciousness. She grew worried. Vivian had not replied to her message within half an hour, so she called her.